


Road to Nowhere

by DarkShadeless



Series: Tales of a Wandering Knight [2]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Gen, Moral Ambiguity, Moral Dilemmas, a hero's journey and its hardships, implied/referenced child abandonment, the way that goes in fairy tales
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28610736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkShadeless/pseuds/DarkShadeless
Summary: Perhaps you have heard of Raan, the hero of Tython, and his quest to end what evil, great or small, plagues our lands.If not... sit. We have a little time.
Series: Tales of a Wandering Knight [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2096412
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	Road to Nowhere

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first of a handful of side stories / prequels to 'Beauty and a Grill', that add some background on the people and the world.  
> (... this was supposed to be crack. It IS. But alas, we have fairy tale-style exposition for the main crack now, to give you some background. Jesus Christ.)

_It is said that once, some time ago, the Heights of Odessen were home to a prince. He lived in a great castle, overlooking all of his land, and hoarded gems and riches as a dragon might, though those were but trinkets to him._

_His heart, they say, was as cold as ice. In the shadow of his presence the people toiled upon the land and so harsh was his rule that to this day none dare speak his name._

_Thus it has been lost to history, as is the way of things._

_Who knows if the stories are even true? If there was ever a prince in our divided country, he has not been seen in a long time. It makes for a good story though._

_They say his court was just as fantastic and decadent as he. That his castle housed all manner of beasts and wondersome creatures. Indeed, that in his home the floors were of marble, the cutlery of gold and monsters lurked in darkened corners for the unwary to be blinded by the glitter and fall prey to their hunger._

_But one day the Fairy Godmother came and she wandered the land. When she saw how the people were suffering, she gave the prince a choice. ‘See sense,’ she said, ‘and I shall spare you a lesson in humility.’_

_What the prince answered? Your guess is as good as mine. He was never heard from again._

_What became of him might be unknown but the story of the Prince of Darkness and how he came to his end is a well-travelled one. Far and wide you may ride across the land and in every corner you may sit down in a tavern to the sound of a bard spinning a yarn about our lord-less home._

_The tale is a long one, full of twists and turns. What I wouldn’t give to be able to hear it again for the first time. You’ll know what I mean, if you ever do. Perhaps you already do, perhaps you have heard one of the verses._

_Perhaps you have heard of Raan, the hero of Tython, and his quest to end the greatest evil that ever plagued our lands._

_The servants of the Nameless One were known to stray far, in those days. No village, no hamlet was safe. And so, one day, the knight that had made it his life’s work to protect the home of the Fairy Godmother herself, and at such a young age, said to her, ‘I will go. I will find evil, wherever it dwells, and I shall banish it.’_

_She looked upon him with sadness. ‘You have done much, my knight. You deserve rest.’_

_‘But how could I rest,’ it is said he returned, ‘while there are people suffering?’_

* * *

Raan spots the site from leagues off. It’s not hard, just as the villagers described.

‘ _Walk three days east and follow the road, what is left of it between the dunes, but travel only after the sun has set. When the moon stands high on, on the third day, that’s when you will find it. The witch fires will mark the way for you.’_

They have and they do. When Raan set out he did not quite know what to expect but on that first night, when he set foot upon what was once a well-paved road, they appeared before him, dancing in the darkness like sparks of frost-tinged fire.

They grew the longer he travelled. The one hanging in the air over the waystone he has stopped beside is twice the size of his fist, the same cool unnatural blue as they all are.

Raan knows better than to test their warmth. They’ll sear a mortal to the bone and beyond at the slightest touch.

Best not to risk it.

In the distance, a warmer fire beckons. Not much farther now.

Road-weary, Raan descends the hill in near complete darkness and prepares himself to climb the next. The footing is treacherous. ‘What is left of the road’ was more than empty words. Out here, the overturned pavement has grown to be less help than hindrance. The desert reclaims all.

He must be careful. The hardest part is still ahead.

It’s at the halfway point, up a hill-side so steep the thing might as well be called a mountain and if it were any taller perhaps it would be. But there are no mountains out here, none that aren’t made of sand.

How the hut hasn’t been swallowed by the wandering dust Raan can only put down to the same magic that has kept the path clear.

Well. ‘Clear’ from a certain point of view. Passable, if only just.

He is tempted to put his pack down before he risks an approach but there’s no guarantee he’ll find it again. He well might not and Raan is not too certain of his chances without it. He’ll need what’s left of his water.

And bandages. He always needs those.

Besides… the burden the villagers have left him with can’t be left behind and it’s the heaviest part.

Slowly, he steals through the night. He has learned the trick of moving without making a sound by now.

The hut is small. It has been hewn into the rock, half buried by sand, but the door and shutters stand open. The cool night-time breeze sets the flames inside to flickering. Metal strikes metal, clear as a bell, and draws sparks.

Three days travel, out into the dunes, that’s where you’ll find it, if you go only by night. Go by day and you’ll never return, another soul lost to the Dune Sea. Go by night and you might. And if you do, if you reach the end of the road and return, you can make a bargain… for a price.

Raan’s hand tightens upon the hilt of his sword but doesn’t draw.

This fight will not be so easily won.

The closer he comes, the warmer it gets. Heat radiates from the entrance. Sweat builds on his brow, though Raan could have sworn the desert had cured him of losing water that way. With trepidation in his heart, he reaches the threshold.

Inside, the hut is just as small as out. Just one room, enough space for a table, a chair, an alcove for a bed… and a workshop.

Tools of trade and finished works cover every free space. Swords, speers, even a halberd hangs on the wall in the far corner. The finest weaponry he has ever laid eyes on. Where their maker takes his steel from out here is anyone’s guess.

Over at the anvil, the smith lets the hammer fall, again, and the sound echoes through Raan’s marrow, sets his teeth on edge. The craftsman lifts the blade he’s working on to inspect it.

A second too late Raan realizes that that’s not all he is doing. A reflection of light flashes, near blinding, and the man turns, too quickly for a human.

He’s slight, still taller than Raan himself if not by much, but his arms are corded with the muscle that comes with his craft. In a smith’s garb he might cut an ordinary figure, dark haired and calloused by his work, if it weren’t for his eyes. They burn with the same molten fire as his forge.

Raan meets them squarely and blue flame sparks over the smith’s fingertips.

He tenses, his grip on his sword tightens again, not that it will help him yet.

The creature’s expression pulls into a sneer, made dangerous by the power that rolls off it in waves. “Great. Another one. You’d think you’d get some peace and quiet out here in the middle of fucking _nowhere_.” With a sharp jab that has Raan scrambling back against his better knowledge it dunks the sword it has been working on in a bucket of water. A cloud of vapor rises with a hiss. “What do _you_ want?”

Okay. That’s… not quite the reception he expected but at least it’s talking. Raan hadn’t counted on that happening unprompted. “I’m,” he hesitates. Wordings are tricky. Too many beings know the truth from lies, or how to make them traps. “I’m here about a bargain.”

“Of course you are,” The smith bites out. He snatches up a rag and wipes his grimy fingers. His nails are too long and sharp enough to leave the cloth with fresh tears. “And you’re not going to leave without getting what you came for, are you.”

The jab firms Raan’s resolve. “No.”

“Fantastic,” it could be gloating, a celebration of another victim caught but… it’s too rough around the edges to sit quite right. “Get inside and sit your ass down.”

In complete disregard of the threat Raan poses, the smith starts to put his tools away, with a care Raan wouldn’t have credited one such as he with. By the time he banks the forge, Raan is still dithering by the door. “Well?”

He’s not going to take anything from a creature born from infernal blood, invitations or otherwise. The risk is too great. Instead, he decides to take the bull by the horns, “Someone came to you for a weapon, a few months hence.”

Silence, when it falls this time, only broken by the snapping of coals in the fire, is tense. The smith turns his molten eyes away from his workplace, hand still on his hammer, and foreboding crawls up Raan’s back in a chill. “Did they now.”

But he hasn’t come this far by being skittish. He made a vow and he intends to keep it. He will see the people of the land safe, come what may. Perhaps he has more bravery than sense to challenge creatures such as this within their den but he will see this through. There’s more than his own life at stake. “Yes. They gave you their name as Sakan of the Ember Plains.”

A lie, of course. You do not hand demon kin your true name, especially not one this powerful.

The smith musters Raan quietly. He gives no indication whether he remembers the human that came to him or not. Raan forges on, unease clawing at him. “They asked for a weapon and they- they-“

He can’t quite make himself say it.

After a few moments of awkward struggling, the smith scoffs. He reaches out to stoke the coals, his flame-touched expression steely. “He promised me his child. He came for a weapon to kill an immortal king and I told him the price would be his son.”

And he took his payment in advance. Delivered on the bargain, that he had too, but…

The Golden Emperor lies dead, despite all of the magics he abused, his palace sacked and his blood-jewels scattered to the wind, his killer hailed the hero he is, but in the end…

Raan presses his lips together until they feel bloodless. “He would like him back.”

It’s too polite, a quiet plea not a command.

The father, whose name he doesn’t even dare think, not here, had come to him in silks fit for a king, bowed beneath the weight of what he had done. With hollowed eyes he had described the bargain he had struck, in his desperation, and what it had cost.

Had told this stranger, this foreign knight from lands so far away, that he had tried to find the way back but the fires wouldn’t spark for him, or anyone whom he could entreat to go in his place.

None of his own, at least, none who had fought at his side and no one else would go. No one else _could_ go, for how would he confess what he had done? That he had slain evil by invoking evil? That he had bought their freedom and his fortune at the cost of his only child?

How would he tell his wife?

Raan forces the memory down. Perhaps no one else had found the way but he had. He is here, now.

The smith looks at him with ancient, glowing eyes, something almost like pity on his face. Almost. “Then he is a fool and so are you.”

The solemn chastisement sends a shiver down Raan’s spine. “Please. I know you take your gifts back-”

As sudden as the wind whipping a fire into frenzy his thoughtless words spark anger. The smith straightens from his comfortable slouch, fury on his face. “I take _nothing_ that isn’t mine!”

Heat rises around them. It presses down on Raan with the weight of an avalanche and makes him stumble back but he sets his feet. “But you do take them back. You do! I know the stories, I followed the signs! They all disappear, if the bargain wasn’t made for keeps.” Unbidden, his eyes wander over the rich appointments of the poor little dwelling. Swords and daggers, spears and polearms, all well-kept, polished to a shine and so finely made they could make a member of the fairy court weep. Gilded, traced in gems and silver lattice, beauty as no human could fashion within a lifetime.

They’re all here, aren’t they? If he set out to find the great blades begged off this hellish craftsman and taken out into the world to take the greatest of quests, do the most dangerous of deeds, before disappearing into obscurity… would he find them? He feels like he might.

The smith balls his hands into fists, voice a hiss of aggravation. “I’m no thief.”

Raan will give him that much, if only just. “I didn’t say you were.” The admission seems to mollify his host somewhat and he pushes on while that lasts, “But, in the understanding that you value your craft,” that’s polite enough right? “I have brought you what you made, in exchange for the boy. That’s fair, yes?”

It’s not, not really, but what bargain for a child is fair in the first place?

For an eternal moment Raan watches the smith’s every move, while the man, the creature, a devil’s blood in human skin, lets his fingers wander over the hilt of his hammer absently and his stare bores into Raan’s very soul.

Then, with a sigh the like you’d expect from the depths of a bellows, he lets go and takes a step towards him. “Show it to me, then. Show me what you brought.”

Raan does not dare take his eyes off him. He sets his pack down blindly. Thankfully the bundle he seeks is right on top, however much he had wished to bury it at the very bottom. Carefully, he tugs it free and unwinds the cloth he had wrapped it in when he could no longer stand the sight of it.

The dagger is beautiful.

He has never seen the like, not even in the court of the Fairy Godmother. The sheath’s edges are gilded in the finest lines of gold. They crawl across it like vines, wrap lovingly around the emerald set in the middle of the widest part.

It shimmers in the low light.

From the very first the only thing it reminded Raan of was an oversized eye.

There’s no reason for it, nothing but gut-instinct and superstition but… gods and spirits all, he hates even looking upon this thing, much less holding it. He has carried it across the desert until his feet bled and with every step he could have sworn that it grew heavier.

For a nonsensical moment Raan wonders if the smith can sense how much he abhors his work. If he will be offended.

But the smith only has eyes for the blade.

He looks at it as if he has lost all sense of the world outside of it but the strange melancholy has not faded from his features. The greed, the covetousness Raan expected is nowhere to be seen. When he reaches out to touch upon the dagger, he does so with the utmost care. “There you are, my sweet. You’re home now. Hush. None of that.”

All of a sudden the blade in Raan’s hands grows lighter, light as a feather. Dread seizes his heart. He almost drops it. The only thing keeping him from doing exactly that is that his muscles have frozen and refuse to work.

They are too close, barely two arm lengths apart, so close Raan can feel the heat that lives inside the smith more than his forge, more than any place that isn’t a demon’s lair, and when the man raises his eyes from the offering to meet his, Raan can feel its sear down to the bottom of his heart.

“You are a fool,” he says, again, almost gently. And then, “ _Listen_.”

Magic splinters over Raan’s senses. The smith breathes it into him in the span of a word and he _is_ a fool, why is he still talking, he should have drawn his sword from the get go and gone in fighting-

And then he hears it.

Whispers like chiming crystal, hushed noise like blades drawn from silk, all around. Every instinct Raan has screams ‘danger’ and ‘battle’ but it’s just the noise, clean and soft, without panic or blood, and from his hands, from the dagger, a voice rises like gold wrought into words and song. _‘He can’t hear me. No one can.’_

“I can, little light,“ the smith says, with more patience than Raan would expect from devil-kin, and a sadness that does not quite make it into his voice. It’s obvious to anyone with eyes, though. “But humans are dense. They hear what they want to hear. You did your job, just like I asked you to, didn’t you?”

 _‘I did!’_ the dagger crows in childlike innocence and Raan’s heart stalls. ‘ _Are you proud of me?_ ’

“Of course,” the smith says quietly, “well done.”

No. No, that can’t- _No_. Suspicion raises its terrible head, too horrid to be denied. Raan’s hands, steady as any knight's, that to shake faintly under their burden. There is a knowing slant to the smith's tired face.

Still, Raan shakes his head in helpless denial. He feels as if there is blood dripping down his fingers, as if he is soaked in it. As if it has dripped from his pack on the long, long way here, all the way through to his bones.

The smith asked for a child and he took his payment in advance.

‘ _Mama didn’t hear me,_ ’ the dagger says, sadly, with the bottomless disappointment of a little boy ignored by their parent, ‘ _I tried to talk to her but she didn’t._ ’

The smith catches the dagger just before Raan would have dropped it, all strength gone out of him. He sinks to his knees, gutted by the knowledge of what he has carried, that it’s too late, that it was always too late-

“I’m sorry to hear that, sweetheart.”

Raan isn’t. He can’t even imagine what it would have done to that woman to hear-

Hear her child’s voice from the weapon her husband commissioned to slay their tyrant of a ruler. Gods have mercy.

The smith, the _creature_ , cradles the weapon gently and ignored his guest completely. With sure steps he finds an empty space upon the wall. Under his touch, fixtures grow from the plaster from nothing, perfectly sized to hold their prize. “There you go. Say hello to your brothers and sisters. Play nice, everyone.” The chorus of steel and the whisper-soft slide of silk grows louder before subsiding to a murmur again.

His- oh, merciful Andru. Raan is going to be sick. His hand shakes upon the hilt of his sword when he finally grips it.

It’s magical too, carried him through so many battles and what if- what if- He tears himself from his hesitation, blade drawn. “You _monster_. How could you?”

The murmuring falls silent.

The sudden quiet is so all encompassing even the forge seems to have frozen in time. The smith turns, face shrouded in shadow, and his eyes glow all the brighter for it. “How could I _what_?” There’s danger in his voice now, steel-bright.

Raan barely feels it’s weight. “You killed a child!”

One? How many has he taken? How many people has he trapped here, souls bound to steel and gems? The injustice burns within him like a living flame.

And the smith laughs. It’s a sound devoid of all humor. “I gave him what he wanted! How am I the one at fault! He wanted justice more than innocence and revenge more than he loved his son, and he paid what he owed.”

Any other knight would have swung. They would have rushed in and fought the beast they had discovered, slain him where he stood or died trying.

But Raan, the hero of Tython, who has taken this hardship upon him of his own choice, hesitates, though he does not quite know why.

There’s something brittle to the smith’s rage, something hopeless and fraying. When Raan does not come for him, his ire only grows. “Do you think I live out here by choice!” he throws at the knight that has come to end his unholy work, like a fistful of glass. “The remotest part of the remotest place on this fucking continent! In the middle of literally nowhere! _And still they find me_!”

The smith’s eyes blaze, his mouth is a snarl. When his voice snaps into a shout, the forge erupts in flame. The heat is nigh unbearable. Sparks choke the air like fairy dust.

Raan’s hold on his sword is white knuckled, his blood sings with the threat but…

He hesitates and though the blades on the walls rattle, none of them comes for his blood.

The smith throws an arm towards the anvil, claws glinting in the light, words chasing one another as if he can't stop, as if he doesn't know how to now that he has started to speak. “They follow Destiny’s path and they come to my door and all of them, they tell me they won’t leave without what they came for!”

The words strike Raan like a blow. He flinches. He had said that too, hadn’t he?

The frenzied energy that has damned near set the hut alight, slowly bleeds out of the smith where he stands, breathing heavily. After a long moment he lets his hand sink. “And when I tell them the price, they all say they wish to pay it,” anger has burned itself to bitterness, black as tar, “And pay it they do. How is that my fault?”

Many creatures know the trick of telling truth from lies. Spend enough time fairy-touched and you will too. Raan has spent many, many years that way. Time is a queer thing in the Fairy Godmother’s realm.

 _My fault, my fault, my fault…_ the smith asks and it echoes. Without the shroud of anger, exhaustion creeps back in, the lines all too visible. “All I want,” he says and it falls between them with the weight of a rock, “is to be left to my work. But you humans just. Won’t. Leave me alone.”

Slowly, Raan lets his sword sink.

Any other knight would have attacked and asked few questions of one who is kin to devils and demons, a child of a dead mother, whose life drained from her to bring the abomination she sired into the world. Why would they? What business has a knight with creatures like this one?

But Raan isn’t any other knight. Perhaps he would have an easier time of it if he was.

Other knights certainly don’t find themselves at a campfire outside the hut of a hellsmith and trying to figure out how to make polite conversation with the most ill-tempered hermit they have ever met. ‘Destiny’s path’ he said and, “You’re… you’re not the one setting the witch fire?”

“ _Why the fuck would I?_ ” The smith bites out while he ladles stew into a bowl.

That’s… that’s a very good question, actually. This place _is_ a little... off the beaten path if you're set on attracting people. “Don’t your customers pay you?”

If anything that question turns his hosts disposition even more venomous. “What customers! Nobody ever comes here for regular smithing and I can’t take payment for Destiny’s work without getting into the kind of debt that gets you _killed._ Even if I did, where would I spend money, huh? There’s nothing out here! I have to hunt just to keep myself fed. Do I look like I eat souls?”

A little.

Raan refrains from saying that. It doesn’t seem very polite.

He takes the bowl the smith shoves at him with no small amount of hesitation. “I just…” he glances at the lumpy contents. “That’s not human flesh, is it?”

Entirely put upon the smith drops the ladle into the pot and drags a hand down his face. “Eat your fucking stew.”

_‘What’s your name anyway?’_

_‘… Raan. My name is Raan. What’s yours?’_

_‘… you can call me Sar.’_

**Author's Note:**

> Mood music for this story:
> 
> Story Intro - Song of Durin by Clamavi De Profundis  
> Raan arriving at the hut - Star Wars: Order 66 Theme | TWO STEPS FROM HELL STYLE by Samuel Kim  
> Confrontation - Wonder Woman 1984 Trailer Music | EPIC ORCHESTRAL REMIX by Samuel Kim  
> Sar's confession - O' Death by Jen Titus


End file.
